Forever yours
by Tardisblue-teaboy
Summary: Sequel to forever more, read that one first. The Doctor regenerates, bringing about something else.
1. An unusual occurence

Jack blinked a few times before he opened his eyes wide. He brought his fists up to his face and rubbed his eyes, attempting to wake himself up and remove the traces of sleep. He sat up and shifted back so that he was leaning against the wall. He tried to remember why he had woken up in the first place. Glancing over at the small clock by his bed, he groaned. It was half past four.

Suddenly Jack noticed something odd in the corner of his eye. He turned to his right, where the tank with Ianto's body in was pulsing with energy. Jack rubbed his eyes again and stared at what he saw before him. The body that lay inside the jelly-like preservative was glowing. Not only that, but it was glowing with regeneration energy. Jack stood up on his bed, smacked his head on the low ceiling and collapsed into a heap on the floor.

Clutching his head where an egg-sized lump was forming, he stood up more carefully and moved over to stand next to the tank. Lowering his hands, he stared at it, unsure of what to do. The liquid inside was bubbling furiously. Jack pressed the buttons on his wrist strap and the top slid open. He looked down at Ianto's body with his hands on the side, gripping tightly. That was when the energy exploded, throwing Jack to the other side of the room where he once more slumped down to the floor. This time, he was completely unconscious.

The energy suddenly reversed itself, all of it plunging back into the tank and concentrating itself on Ianto's heart. Then it disappeared altogether.

Jack woke up, groggy, disorientated and extremely annoyed. He clawed his way up to a standing position with the aid of the wall behind him. Shaking his head, in an attempt to dispel the feeling of dizziness, Jack looked over to the tank. He did a double take and once more rubbed his eyes to make sure that his eyes were not deceiving him.

The tank that had contained Ianto's body was now in pieces, the sides that had been fused together by welding equipment well beyond earth's were now all lying separately around the bedroom. The liquid that had contained the body had (thankfully) disappeared altogether. That would have made one hell of a clean-up job.

Jack swiftly climbed up the ladder and into his office, there was no sign of any disturbance. What on earth had happened now?


	2. Meeting on the TARDIS

The Doctor ran around the console, frantically trying to regain control of the wrecked TARDIS. He looked up and noticed that his companion was standing there looking a little disorientated. "Could you please just flick the wibbly lever, that would be a great help." He said. Then he paused and stared unseeing at the TARDIS console before him. 'Just hang on a minute' he thought to himself 'you don't have a companion'. The Doctor slowly raised his head and stared at the person in front of him. "So in that case, who in the universe are you?"

The intruder stared right back. "Jones, sir," he replied "Ianto Jones."

Sorry about how short this chapter is :/ will get the next chapter up soon. God, the suspense is killing me!


	3. Why am I alive?

The Doctor stretched out his hand, his right hand and offered it to Ianto. "I'm the Doctor. It's nice to… No wait a minute." He withdrew the hand. "What are you doing on the TARDIS? MY TARDIS."

"Sorry, sir." Ianto said with a shake of his head. "but I have absolutely no idea." Ianto looked up at the Doctor and the Doctor looked right back at him. There was a huge bang and both of them were thrown over to the other side of the control room, clinging onto the railings in an effort to stay upright. "I think I should probably do something about that." The Doctor muttered to himself.

He did a marine-style belly crawl back to the central controls and hauled himself back to standing using, incidentally, the wibbly lever. It slid into the correct position and the TARDIS shuddered, then stilled. "Phew, that's better," said the Doctor and turned back to look at Ianto. "Right then Jones, Ianto Jones," Ianto's heart gave a little lurch when the Doctor called him that "let's get you sorted out."

"How can I be here?" Ianto blurted out.

"Well I don't know…" said the Doctor and launched into some waffle about the rift and the time vortex that Ianto ignored.

"No," he said "you misunderstood. I don't mean how can I be here," he indicated the TARDIS "I mean how can I be alive." The Doctor's jaw dropped open. "I died Doctor," said Ianto "I died protecting the children of Earth and I died happily in the arms of the man I loved, but I died all the same."

"Can you remember anything after that?" the Doctor asked. Ianto gave him a look. It was a look that said 'I'm not going to answer because in a minute you're going to realise how stupid that question was'. The Doctor paused for a minute before he hit himself on the head with the palm of his hand. "Stupid, stupid brain," he muttered "stupid, stupid Doctor's brain, work properly." Ianto looked on, eyebrow's raised. The Doctor sighed and said "So you died… and then you ended up here?"

"Yup."

"Well that is strange… I guess the best thing would just be for me to take you home and then. Oh. Stupid brain again, the TARDIS is kind of stuck in a state of flux, not permanent you understand but, yeah." The Doctor sighed once again, why was there always an immediate problem while he was still regenerating.

"Well in that case Doctor can I please use your phone?" Ianto asked walking back to the centre console and picking up the handheld device.

"Yes but it only works with people who have universal connection mobiles so I doubt you'll be able to phone anyone useful." Ianto raised his eyebrows once more and dialled a number that it would take more than death for him to forget.

Once again sorry about the short chapter (though it's better than the last one). I promise the next one will be longer. any ideas in reviews are welcome and i will try to include them :)


	4. The phone call

Jack picked up the phone and saw the name of the person who was calling. The Doctor. The one person in the universe who might be able to give him an explanation for what was happening right now. Jack put the phone to his ear and although he knew that this was the voice he needed to hear right now, it wasn't the voice that he longed for.

"Jack." Jack couldn't speak, that voice, the voice that had said his name, that was a welsh voice, and boy did he know that accent. "Jack speak to me." Said the voice, but Jack was too choked up to talk, tears streamed down his face. 'You're imagining,' he told himself 'stop being stupid and concentrate.'

"Jack…" the other voice said again. "Jack it's me," a sob could be heard on the other end of the line "it's Ianto."

"Ianto." Jack breathed not quite yet daring to believe this to be true.

"Yes Jack, it's me. I don't know what happened and I know this is probably killing you right now and I'm sorry but it is me, I'm back Jack." Jack could hear the smile in Ianto's voice at those last words. Then there was a pause before Ianto said "Oh yeah sure, here you go." And Jack heard the slight rustle as the phone was passed over to someone.

"Erm, hello?" said the voice on the other end.

"Captain Jack Harkness speaking," said Jack, all business now. "Who is this?"

"Jack, it's me. It's the Doctor. New voice, new face, yeah I got bashed up a bit but I'm BACK. The new me, it's me!"

"Doctor?" Jack was slightly taken aback. This new version of his old friend was so young, so… energetic and overly excited.

"Yep, that's me." The Doctor replied. The Doctor quickly pressed a few buttons so that the phone call was projected around the control room before laying the receiver carefully on one side of the console. "Now…" he said, changing his mood from excited to serious in a heartbeat. "I think we need to talk about your friend Ianto. When he died, what did you do with him. My stupid brain has finally worked out the reason why he may not remember what happened to him after he died." Both Jack and Ianto flinched at these words. "Sorry." Said the Doctor nonchalantly and without any emotion. "I do need to know though Jack so that we can sort him out."

"Well…" Jack began, slightly embarrassed at what he had done with Ianto's body.

"Jack." Prompted the Doctor impatiently.

"Ok, well here's the thing. I put him in a tank that contained the same gel that was in the jar that held your hand." It came out in a rush but the Doctor was used to listening to babble seeing as he did a lot of it himself.

"Ah, really?" The Doctor spewed out, getting excited again. "What was this tank made of? And where did you get the excess fluid from?" he asked, frowning a little.

"As to your first question I have absolutely no clue, it was something that came through the rift a while ago when I was at the hub by myself. When I went to collect it there was this fading light nearby and it spoke to me. It told me that it had crashed to earth in its ship and although the ship was indestructible the creature itself was dying. There was nothing I could do, the light just went out after that but I took the tank back to the hub and filled it with the liquid, yes Doctor I'm getting to that bit. Basically a while ago an alien kind of smashed the jar containing your hand." Jack gave a little cough of embarrassment and Ianto looked sheepishly at the Doctor. "Once I had sorted that out, I swabbed some of the stuff off my hands and put it in a test tube. Apparently, if it is not contained in a certain type of material it multiplies."

"It's alive…" whispered the Doctor in fascination and awe.

"So it would seem." Jack agreed, continuing with his story. " Anyway I let it multiply and kept pouring it into the tank when the few test tubes I had were full, it didn't multiply inside the tank you see. Eventually the tank was full and when Ianto died." Jack paused here to take a deep breath. "I put his body in the tank to preserve it." The Doctor quickly glanced at Ianto, who had tears running down his pale cheeks.

"Ah, well that would be why Ianto is now… well… not dead."

This time it was Ianto who spoke. "And why's that Doctor?'

"Well, that gel, I know what it is now, it's like bacteria. It's alive. And it can multiply from a single cell. But it has an extremely low level telepathic field. That is to say, it's all connected. Basically a while ago a biological metacrisis occurred between me and Donna. And that caused my DNA to be imprinted into those little buggers. I guess that when I regenerated, Ianto sort of did as well."

This caused Jack to go into full scale panic mode. "So he's regenerated! He's changed and he's a time lord now? Jesus Christ I fucking hate you Torchwood!" He screamed around the hub.

"Jack calm down. I'm still me don't worry. Still the same face and the same mind and the same… feelings." Jack breathed a sigh of relief.

"There's just one thing…" said the Dcotor.

"What's that?" Ianto asked.

"You're not… well you're not human anymore. You're part Time Lord. Not in the way that Donna was, but you will regenerate when you die. You won't change, you'll just recover."

"Like Jack?" Ianto asked excitedly.

"No." Jack moaned suddenly, causing the other too to stare at the phone lying on the console. "No, no, no, no, no." Ianto's face fell. He had known all along. Ever since he had met Jack he had known that he never really wanted Ianto forever. He might have stayed to see Ianto live out his pitiful little life, but what was that to an immortal? Jack never intended to spend the rest of forever with Ianto, deep down Ianto knew that he had always known this.

"I don't want you to live forever Ianto." Said Jack. His harsh words cut Ianto like a knife. "Just get him home to me Doctor," he said finally before he hung up the phone. Jack Harkness lent back against the desk, put his head in his hands and cried. He wept for his poor, beautiful Ianto who didn't yet know that forever was an awfully long time.

Hello my amazing readers :) I know it seems like this could finish here but I promise I'm not going to leave you hanging because that will be cruel. I'll get the next chapter up as soon as I can but I don't think 4 chapters in one day is too shabby ;) reviews welcome.


	5. Ianto knows everything

Ianto Jones stared at the phone that the Doctor had now replaced onto the central TARDIS console. "He doesn't want me," he breathed and collapsed into the chair that was conveniently positioned behind him. Ianto put his head in his hands and he cried also, unknowingly mirroring the position that Jack still held god knows how far away. Ianto brought his knees up to his chest and with one hand wrapped around his shins and the other remaining by his head; he rocked himself like a frightened child. What was the point in living forever when you had no one to share it with? For the first time in his 26 years, Ianto could really empathise with how Jack felt about living forever.

Meanwhile the Doctor was standing off to one side doing his 'keep talking about what's happening and eventually you'll find a solution' thing. Unfortunately his brain was still not as quick as usual and the Doctor was starting to get frustrated about this fact. He continued smacking his face with his palm until he actually began to feel a bit dizzy. How in the universe was he supposed to get the TARDIS out of flux when he was in the middle of his regeneration?! The Doctor had a quick glance over at Ianto; he couldn't understand what he was doing at all. The other man was curled in a chair, rocking himself backwards and forwards like he was doing some form of prayer.

Deciding that he probably needed some help figuring this out, even if it was from a human with a completely unknown span of intelligence, the Doctor slowly walked over to the young man. When Ianto felt a hand tentatively placed on his shoulder, he bolted upright; simultaneously shaking his head and wiping his eyes. "Sir?" he asked.

"Please drop the sir, Ianto," said the Doctor, once again causing Ianto's heart to throb as he was reminded of Jack. "Just call me Doctor."

"Sorry Doctor, what was it you wanted me to do?"

"Well to be perfectly honest I have no clue how to get the TARDIS out of flux without the risk of blowing a rather large whole in the fabric of spacetime," the Doctor admitted sheepishly.

"Well," began Ianto, gulping down the last of his tears "if you could somehow trip the system then…" he faded off, an idea suddenly coming to his brilliant mind. "What if you uncoupled a link beneath the controls and used the sonic screwdriver, it works by pointing and thinking right? What if you used that to kind of, jolt us out of flux, would that work?" The Doctor just stared at him unashamedly, his mouth gaping open like a fish.

"Ianto, you're like the Einstein of the 21st century. And don't worry that's a great compliment. Brilliant man, brilliant man, but anyway…" the Doctor continued to stare at the genius man before him. "Maybe it's the Time Lord part of you making itself known," he suggested.

"Oh no Doctor. Even as a human, I knew everything," claimed Ianto with a grin. The Doctor chuckled and ran down to the small area beneath the TARDIS to carry out Ianto's instructions.

When he had finally found a suitable cable network to dismantle, the Doctor pulled the sonic screwdriver out of his jacket pocket and Ianto heard a strange buzzing sound, almost like a broken amplifier he thought, when the Doctor pressed the button and pointed it at the…

"Wait a minute!" yelled the Doctor, immediately releasing the button on the screwdriver. "Even if this works to jump her out of flux, there's no way she's going to make a trip to anywhere after that." He rushed back up to the main control deck again and started swirling little twizzly things and pressing buttons and doing all sorts of bizarre things that Ianto didn't even attempt to understand. The Doctor began mutter to himself again. "If I set the coordinates to the hub and the correct date and everything," he pulled another thingamabob. "Then seeing as we're in the vortex anyway I should be able to jump her straight out of flux and materialise straight into the Torchwood hub. Oh Doctor," he said with a smile "I do believe that brain of yours is beginning to sort itself out." Once again he hit himself on the head. "Concentrate," he muttered and raced back down to the uncoupled cables.

Once the Doctor had used the sonic on the two cable endings, the TARDIS gave an almighty lurch, settled herself and then abruptly burst into flames again. "Out, out, out!" said the Doctor and Ianto didn't hesitate. Running out into the hub he almost collided with something. He stood stock still and raised his eyes to look up at the tear-stained face of Jack Harkness.


	6. The Doctor's brain fails again

The Doctor had done his job and got Ianto back to where he belonged, with Jack apparently. Deciding to leave the two to sort everything between them, the Doctor retreated back into the TARDIS and shut the door silently behind him. He quickly pressed a few buttons and then cranked the silver with blue flashies turny thingy. That was by far his favourite part of the TARDIS console. The Doctor opened the doors and got a swift glance at a fabulous air view of London before he promptly fell out of the TARDIS and into the clear night air.

Clinging on desperately to the brim of the entrance to the TARDIS, the only thing the Doctor could come up with was how much he wanted an apple. Somehow managing to retrieve his sonic screwdriver from his jacket with his teeth, he proceeded to climb back inside the TARDIS. He was in a slight hurry to avert the course of the TARDIS to prevent a large collision with Big Ben. Now that would have put him in a very tight spot.

Again sorry about the chapter length but I needed to get the Doctor back to here so that he could go and meet Amy and the next chapter's going straight up so don't hate me too much :3


	7. Reunited

Jack was still sat in his office with his face in his hands. The tears had subsided eventually but he was too numb to move from the position he was in. Suddenly, the all-too-familiar noise of the TARDIS could be heard all around the hub. Jack ran out of his office and down the stairs to the main area of the hub as fast as he could. There it stood, the blue police box, directly in front of him merely a few metres away.

The door opened and Jack sucked in a breath as Ianto ran out of it, across the floor and almost bowled Jack over before he managed to stop himself. The Doctor exited shortly after and stood, leaning casually on the side of the TARDIS. Jack barely even noticed his new face; he had eyes only for the Welshman in front of him. Ianto was wearing the same three-piece suit that he had died in, still immaculate as the day he had purchased it no doubt.

Ianto's eyes travelled slowly up Jack's chest until both sets of eyes met. Jack immediately pulled Ianto into a bone-crushing hug. Ianto remained unresponsive in his arms and when his head came to rest on Jack's shoulder, two unwilling tears escaped and dribbled down his face. This was pure torture for the Welshman. Why was he being put through all this? He knew that Jack didn't want him to live with him forever, so why was he acting so happy to see him? 'It's because I'm not dead anymore,' Ianto thought to himself. 'He's just happy to be free of the blame he put upon himself for my death.'

By now Jack had realised that something was wrong. Ianto had remained still as a statue when he had hugged him; his hands were still clenched in fists at his sides. For some reason, Jack immediately jumped to the conclusion that the Doctor had told Ianto something that now made Jack repulsive to him. Jack took a short step back, folded his arms and raised his eyebrows questioningly at Ianto. Ianto actually stepped forward, closing the gap between them. He drew his right fist back and then smashed into Jack's face as hard as he could. Jack was thrown into a nearby wall with the force of the blow and for the second time that night, he slumped to the floor unconscious.


	8. Words and acceptance

When Jack awoke, he was sat in the chair behind his desk. Ianto was sat on the edge of the desk facing him. His arms and legs were folded and he was staring at Jack with a stony expression. Nobody else would have noticed, but because he knew Ianto so well Jack could also see pain in those blue eyes that he had missed so much. Jack suddenly thought that maybe this wasn't anything to do with the Doctor after all.

Ianto didn't break the silence, but instead just sat there and waited for Jack to completely wake up and break it himself. Jack groaned and felt the back of his head, where he now had three lumps, one of them more painful and throbbing than the other two. 'Oh well,' he thought to himself 'at least they'll all be healed within the next twelve hours.' He looked at Ianto once more and leaned back in his chair. "Are we gonna talk now Ianto?" he asked "Or are you gonna knock me unconscious again first?"

"Please don't provoke me Jack I'm trying very hard to restrain myself," Ianto replied. Jack chuckled to himself.

"No sir today Ianto?" he joked.

"I can call you sir if you would prefer me to. Sir."

"Aw come on Ianto you know I was only joking."

"Well I wouldn't say that it was one of your better ones."

Jack chuckled again; there was the dry humour he had missed so much. He cleared his throat and attempted to be serious. The two of them did actually have a lot to talk about. He was about to speak when Ianto beat him to it. "Can I go now please Jack? I only wanted to make sure you woke up and were ok." He sounded as though he were about to cry."

"No." Jack said firmly. "Why do you want to leave Ianto, I need you here we have so much to talk about."

"I don't think we do," Ianto countered "I know you don't want me forever Jack, I think it would be easier for us both if I just left now."

"What?" Jack shouted, that wasn't anything like the answer he was expecting. "Why would you think that I don't want you Ianto?" he asked in a hurt voice. Ianto really had begun to cry by now.

"I don't want you to live forever Ianto." He quoted Jack's earlier words back to the person who had uttered them. Jack at least had the decency to look ashamed.

"I didn't mean it like that Ianto I promise," he whispered. He was such an idiot, why couldn't he have waited to end the phone call before he had said that?

"I don't think there are many other ways to mean that Jack," Ianto observed quietly. "I've always known that as much as you said that you wanted me forever you only ever planned to see me grow old and die. You would never have taken the chance given the choice would you." Ianto was screaming now. "Dammit why did you have to put me in that stupid case, couldn't you have just left me to rot like every other person you supposedly loved?" With these words Ianto crumpled to the floor into his protective little ball again and rocked himself. 'Wow Jack Harkness,' Jack thought 'you've really fucked it up this time.'

"Ianto I swear to you," he said, speaking aloud now "I didn't mean that. All I meant was that I would never ever wish this curse upon anyone. Not even for my own selfishness. It's so horrible watching everyone you know die, at least you'll get old. I used to have to kill myself off rather than let the people around me know that I didn't age. It's terrible Ianto, living through the years and knowing that at the end of them all, only you will be left. Left on your own, forever."

Jack walked over to Ianto who had finally stopped rocking but had not come out of his shell yet. Jack placed a hand on his shoulder and rubbed his thumb in soothing circles. He sat down behind Ianto with his legs either side and gathered the younger man into his arms, legs and all. Jack lent down and whispered into Ianto's ear "I swear to you Ianto Jones, even when the Earth stops turning and the human race has died out, I promise that I will still want you by my side."

Ianto knew that every word was the truth and there was no denying the love that he could plainly hear in his captain's voice. Ianto allowed himself to relax against Jack's chest and managed to extract his knees from the man's embrace to lengthen them out along the floor. And there they sat, the two of them knowing that they each had the other, forever.

Ok well that's it everyone, although I'm not sure whether to right an epilogue so please let me know. A special thank you to Lesleigh who's idea it was for me to write this sequel :) Please review and any new ideas are very welcome.

Tardisblue-teaboy xxx


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